


Ruins

by emmaliza



Category: Take That (Band)
Genre: Angst, Angst and Porn, Body Image, Complicated Relationships, Depression, Dom/sub Undertones, Drug Use, Eating Disorders, Flashbacks, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Love/Hate, M/M, Rough Sex, The Wilderness Years
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-28
Updated: 2019-03-28
Packaged: 2019-12-25 17:41:38
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,825
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18266243
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emmaliza/pseuds/emmaliza
Summary: Robbie wrecked Gary, in more ways than one.





	Ruins

_The first time it happens, he's left strewn across a narrow hotel bed, moaning into sheets soaked with his own sweat and god knows what else, trembling at the cold air hitting his wet, clammy skin, Rob's come spread across his back and thighs. His body aches with the force of what Rob just did to him. He needs to get up, to clean himself off, to discuss how they're going to keep this secret... but he has to move first._

_That is proving difficult._

_Rob, being Rob, laughs at him about it. “You right there, Gaz?” he asks, with just a hint of real concern._

_“Fine,” Gary grumbles into the mattress. “No thanks to you.”_

_“Hey, when I said I was going to fuck you until you couldn't walk, I didn't think I'd actually manage it,” Rob says, with usual teenage cockiness. He leans down to kiss Gary on the ear. “So, do I have to carry you back to your room or what?”_

_Gary just blushes and makes an noncommittal noise, but he is in fact not going anywhere any time soon, so he lets Rob roll him over and cuddle him until the morning._

* * *

Gary ought to get out of bed.

He turns his head toward the clock, squinting at the sunlight blaring through his curtain, spliff hanging perilously from his fingers and spilling ashes onto his sheets. The neon red letters hurt his eyes, coming tauntingly close to twelve o'clock. He groans as his stomach rumbles.

It's not like he needs to get out of bed, really. He has nowhere to be, nothing to do, no-one to see. He can waste away in his big fancy countryside mansion if he likes.

It didn't used to be like this. He used to get up at the crack of dawn, not willing to miss a second of rehearsals. Even before the band, back when he was a kid, he'd wake up early so he could get an hour or two of practice in before school.

He's not touched his piano in weeks. He can barely stand to look at the thing anymore.

Gary remembers a young man who used to sleep off his hangovers in his guest room until three in the afternoon, then come downstairs and wrap his arms around Gary's neck as he tinkered at the keys.

He winces, closes his eyes, and burrows further between the covers. That doesn't matter. None of that matters.

* * *

_He's on his knees in his bathroom, gagging on the end of Rob's cock, and Rob said they should record in here for the acoustics but there's something pointed about giving head on the cold marble floor like this, nails digging into his scalp. He doesn't think Rob's that cunning though. He's getting off on it, of course he is, and Rob knows that. This is the one way he will let Rob overpower him._

_Rob might still be mad at him for saying he didn't like his song – but really, band like theirs, you can't write about prostitution, can you? Gary didn't even finish the lyrics before telling him off. Maybe he was being a dick then, but still._

_(He didn't get jealous when he realised Robbie seemed to have a way with words, when he's always found that the trickiest part of the whole songwriting process. Of course not.)_

_Rob comes in his mouth and Gary comes in his pants, groaning and swallowing obediently. He feels a moment of guilt for what he's let Rob do to him – although he's still not sure how it's anyone's business but his own. He's never been a risk-taker. Having a steamy secret same-sex affair when half the press is convinced you're gay anyway, that's right up Rob's alley, but him? Never._

_It's selfish, but sometimes he wishes Rob would take his drugs and booze and songs and smile and cock and just go. This isn't going to end well._

_After, Rob doesn't say anything – odd for him – but pulls him up by the arm, squeezing the flesh there hard, and into the shower so they can clean up. Once that's done, Gary's left with bruises on his shoulder and a rap verse that he's not sure he really wants to use._

* * *

Eventually he rises when he's out of weed and hungry, about one PM. He slumps into the kitchen in his extra-large tracksuit that somehow does nothing to keep him warm, and remembers how Robbie used to laugh at him for walking about in his duffel coat all day because he was too cheap to turn the heating on. He sighs.

The cereal he has is basically just sugary cardboard. It would be more respectable to pour a bowl and add milk, but Gary doesn't see the point, so he eats it out of the box in handfuls.

He lights a cigarette in the other hand, lets the nicotine tame the anxious thrum beneath his skin, and thinks. Robbie's always gotten such mileage out of his substance abuse, the drugs and alcohol, stints in rehab, trail of broken hearts around him but the worst of all his own – you've gotta hand it to him, he suffers beautifully.

Gary wonders what the tabloids would make of his sugar and cannabis diet, but no, he tried that once didn't he? Putting out what little drug experience he has for all the world to see. And nobody believed him. 'Course not. No-one could imagine him doing such a thing.

* * *

_Rob's high, and Gary would never admit he gets off on that – how rough it makes him act, anyway, pinning his legs up around his head as he ploughs away, body trembling with the rush of whatever chemicals he's working off._

_Gary doesn't think that much about Rob's substance use – he gets annoyed when Rob turns up drunk to rehearsals, and he gets horny when Rob slams him up against the wall and has his way with him, but anything else is just too uncomfortable._

_He feels a tiny bit guilty for that, but he reasons, it's Rob's business, not his. They're not dating, after all._

_“You stupid, selfish, greedy bitch,” Rob snaps in his ear as he comes inside, and Gary cries out as he spills across his belly. He barely even thinks about the words, because he's sure Rob doesn't mean them. Rob's spat things like that at him during sex before, and always walked them back after._

_Rob rolls off him and for a moment they just lie next to each other, in nervous, fearful silence. Rob twitches and shakes the whole time._

_After a moment it's too much for him, and Rob gets up and leans over the bed for his clothes. Gary's half-relieved to think he might just leave, but instead he grabs a small vial of white powder from the pockets of his jeans. He offers it to Gary with a raised eyebrow._

_Gary's eyes go comically wide when he sees it, but well, you try everything once don't you?_

* * *

He settles in the living room, rewatching Star Wars on the fancy new DVD player he ordered on the phone, and had the people on the other line snicker as he told them his name. It's not worth the risk watching any actual telly, just in case he pops up out of nowhere with one of his snide barbs – or worse, one of those olive branches he sometimes sends out when he starts feeling guilty, but never last more than a few minutes.

But worst of all are the times Gary sees him on the telly, and Robbie doesn't mention him at all – because why would he? He's the biggest pop star in the world, and Gary's...

Retreating into the movies of his childhood is much easier. If he ever catches a glimpse of himself in the black screen, well, he doesn't look at all like the person Robbie used to fuck anymore. So what does it matter?

* * *

_“You've lost weight.”_

_Gary is hurriedly pulling his clothes back on in the changing rooms of an arena in Germany, knowing they don't have time for this, but he can't help but look back at Robbie's words. “So?” he asks with a frown._

_He knows he's never been the most desirable of their band, that's not his roll, but he's always told himself that Robbie Williams, apparently the second-most shaggable bloke in Britain (after Mark of course), is fucking him, so how repulsive could he possibly be?_

_But still, if he's lost some weight and is looking better and feeling better about himself, what business is it of Rob's? What, is he jealous?_

_Rob narrows his eyes suspiciously. “Thought you didn't need to be the pretty one, if you had the rest of us 'round you?”_

_And Gary averts his eyes. “Come on, they'll be wondering where we are.” Because he's not going to let Rob make him feel guilty for something he hasn't done, and wouldn't be wrong anyway._

* * *

The day fades away and Gary crawls back into bed as soon as he can justify it, closing his eyes and hoping sleep claims him quickly. It doesn't work though. He always used to be such a heavy sleeper, but not anymore.

Thing is, even when he sleeps, it doesn't help. Whenever he wakes there will be Rob, lurking at the back of his mind.

* * *

_Rob's shown up at his house out of nowhere, pissed as a newt, and collapsed into his bed – not the bed he usually sleeps in, the bed he's only ever in when they're shagging. He's clearly much too drunk to get it up though, so Gary wonders why he is here._

_He pulls the covers over Rob's body and reminds himself to prepare extra sheets in case he's sick, and then Rob's hand darts out from nowhere, grabs his own. “Gaz,” he moans, his face half-squashed against the bed, desperate sounding. “Gaz, don't go.”_

_Gary frowns. He wasn't planning on it. “It's alright, Rob,” he tries to reassure, and Rob squeezes harder – hard enough to hurt._

_“I love you.”_

_Gary stops. Slowly, Rob's grip relaxes, and Gary's sure he actually has fallen asleep. He tucks Rob into bed and kisses his head gently, but he doesn't stay the night with him. He can't._

_Rob didn't mean what he said. He's just drunk. He can't. This thing they have, it's – it's something, but it's not love. If they were in love, what would they do about it? They couldn't tell anyone, they couldn't be lovers – they've always played around with the gay thing in their band, but kept it strictly within the realm of ambiguity. And Take That is getting toward the end of its natural lifespan anyway; Gary's got a solo career to worry about – and Rob might want to do something himself, who knows?_

_If there's one thing Rob could do to ruin him, it's love him._

_He must know that._


End file.
